Anyway, the Fourth Wall is the fact that in any work of fiction the characters are unaware of the fact that they're fictional characters in a work, the audience observing them, and whatever medium conventions occur in between the two.

Breaking the fourth wall is when a character acknowledges their fictionality, by either indirectly or directly addressing the audience. Alternatively, they may interact with their creator (the author of the book, the director of the movie, the artist of the comic book, etc.). This is more akin to breaking one of the walls of the set, but the existence of a director implies the existence of an audience, so it's still indirectly Breaking The Fourth Wall. This trope is usually used for comedic purposes.

It should be noted that other sources will refer to any fiction that draws attention to its fictionality as "Breaking The Fourth Wall". Our definition is a bit narrower: Breaking The Fourth Wall only occurs if the characters acknowledge the audience or the author, whether directly or indirectly, got it? It's not enough that I recognize my status as a wiki page, it's the fact that I'm commenting to you about it!

Although Breaking the Fourth Wall are mostly Played for Laughs nowadays, serious fourth wall breaking is not unheard of. Such if the person is suffering from insanity or goes under some kind of existential crisis.

Named for the theatrical convention of building sets with right, left and back walls, while the audience observes the action through an imaginary "fourth"note or sometimes "third", depending on if or how the designers chose to number their walls wall located at the front of the stage. Breaking the fourth wall would occur when the actors would step through where the virtual fourth wall should be and address the audience directly.

Often used for Lampshade Hanging. But if a character lampshades without addressing or acknowledging the audience, it's justLampshade Hanging. Similarly the fourth wall can be broken with no lampshades in sight.

If somebody is not in the break and doesn't understand who the ones breaking the wall are talking to, see Audience? What Audience?.

"Well, brother, we're lightening the load around here. We're trimming the fat. We're thinning the herd. I mean, you know, it's pathetic. It's pathetic, that Dixie would let this company get in the shape it's in. It's her train of thought! Raven? Who hasn't had a damn shower or bath? Y'know, with RVD, and that whole crew out there? They meant to professional wrestling what Hulk Hogan, who sold out Shea Stadium? who put 94,000 people in the Pontiac Silverdome? who slammed a 700-pound giant? They mean to professional wrestling what Hulk Hogan means?

"No wonder this company was in the shape it's in. It's time to get rid o' the trash, the garbage, the worthless piece of crap out here, and we started with Dixie Carter. Yeah, we're gettin' very real around here. We are so, real, it's unbelievable. Because, if you don't get over like I said, you're fired. If you don't draw number, if you don't entertain, if you don't put asses in seats, if you don't put the coinage in the piggy bank, you're fired. No more games. No more, "Kayfabe." "It's a work." "I've won 34 tag team belts." Who gives a damn how many fake belts you won!? If you don't draw money, you get fired around here. If you don't put asses in seats, you are gone."

Professional Wrestling as a whole exists in a weird space where there is no fourth wall...but there is. The universe portrayed in the ring is considered "real", for all intents and purposes. The people who enter the ropes, be they the living undead, obliviously narcissistic, or rich beyond belief; that's who they actually are. The audience has to believe that they exist both on and off the clock just as you see them. Likewise, they are constantly aware they are on television and performing before a live audience, so the concept of a fourth wall in the traditional sense is not there. The actual fourth wall is Kayfabe, which is something you generally do not want to break (as the notion is almost critical to the concept of pro wrestling making sense at all; even admitting its existence, like the above, is a surefire way to throw Willing Suspension of Disbelief out the window and even the audience knows it).

CM Punk, through his scathing shoot promo, has created an on-screen character for himself where he can fly between the fourth wall and reality.

In that initial promo, he even explicitly mentions that he's breaking the fourth wall.

The Cashore Marionettes do this occasionally; one of the most significant instances is the skit "The Quest", in which a puppet scales his own puppeteer like a mountain, accompanied by triumphant music.

Possibly the most explicit example is in Season 5, Episode 4, where one of the sketches is actor Simon Kane getting increasingly annoyed at actor and writer John Finnemore about the fact that he always plays the discontented characters. During the sketch, he frequently points out that John Finnemore has written all of this, and it isn't even his opinions.

Series 2, episode 4: Margaret Cabourn-Smith gets grumpy about the fact that her only role in the last sketch is as an owl

In the former Jimmy Neutron's Nicktoon Blast ride, there was a scene where SpongeBob is flung through Bikini Bottom, saying hello to everyone along the way. When greeting the regular Bikini Bottom citizens, he refers to them as "secondary characters".

In the Revenge of the Mummy Ride, towards the end ride it appears to have ended, with a worker behind glass saying the ride is over. This worker is then killed by the Mummy and the ride continues. When the ride ends, you see a recording of one of the makers of the ride, wishing you a good day. He is then also killed by the Mummy.

Visual Novels

Subverted at the end of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: We see Phoenix talking to what sounds like the player. He's actually talking to the members of a jury.

However, at the very end of Justice for All, they come very close to doing it—Pearl observes, "This is the first time I get to hear the real you!" The in-game reason is that she's not actually heard him yell "OBJECTION!" during a case, but you're encouraged to yell it into your DS microphone, as it's voice activated (You can still just press "A".)

In Justice For All, examining the patient on crutches in the Hotti Clinic during case 4 prompts "Director Hotti" into talking about how the patient seems to have not even moved since when you were there last. He also states how the man seems to be standing in the same postion all the time referencing the static backgrounds used in the games.

In Akatsuki No Goei the maid Tsuki tells Kaito that he's Tae's boyfriend, bodyguard, teacher and more and he gets irritated at the long string of uninterrupted kanji. So she replies by saying the same thing, except this time it's all in hiragana, meaning it's nothing more than a long, incomprehensible string of syllables. That's why kanji exist in the first place.

In Dangan Ronpa hen Monokuma starts expositing on the backstories of the culprit and victim in Chapter 2, he says to hold O (or Ctrl in the PC version) to skip it in case you didn't want to hear all this.

In the Cold Opening to episode 5, Boat is attempting to speak French with Baguette using the dictionary he purchased in a previous episode. Once Boat asked Baguette to repeat what he had just said, Baguette asked Boat if he couldn't see the subtitles. At which point the subtitles themselves address Boat. After witnessing Baguette getting hugged by the subtitles, Boat proceeds to break a wall labelled 4.

Becomes a Brick Joke in The Stinger. When Boom Box mentions how some of the characters there (him, Party Hat and Shieldy) were recommended characters and Party Hat agrees (while looking at the screen to boot), Boat once again breaks the same wall.

Episode 23 goes completely and utterly nuts with this trope as Nora downs an entire pot of coffee and ends up travelling through various dimensions she ends up in the real world. She's brought back to "relative" normal when her voice actress drinks coffee.

EVTV Weather has a few occasional 4th wall breaks. Along with the character of Maggot Man, who serves as a pseudo-narrator.

In sooper appisote 3, the entire series’ font gets changed midway through the sooper appisote, due to someone pressing a button that said "CHANGE FONT".

And in A.18, Liteslayer and Deine indirectly break the fourth wall by acknowledging the live “evolution” happening to them. It starts by a text-to-speech-translator, getting colored, then spelling properly, then so on and so forth until Lite kills himself to stop any more "evolution" from happening.

The fourth wall is broken continuously in the Alfred's Playhouse series. Alfred address the audience as "boys and girls" and in the movie, Dictator Pickles personally introduces Alfred to the audience.

Homestar Runner does this, particularly in the "Virus" Strong Bad e-mail where the format of the web page gets tampered with. Also, "My mouth was a broken JPEG!" Happens literally in some of the iTunes openings, where Strong Bad will either press his face against the screen, leaving a print, or literally try to break your screen!

At one point in a Happy Tree Friends interactive minigame, a character is killed when they're crushed against the fourth wall.

In GEOWeasel, the fourth wall is broken enough that Mitri complains about Nar breaking the fourth wall, and Nar retorts that pointing it out would also be, as he says, self-referencing.

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